Chapter 12 - Literature and Literary Heroes

Summary

The Countess Marie d’Agoult, an extraordinary woman of letters who wrote under the pen name Daniel Stern, recalled an early encounter with Franz Liszt:

[He] was drawn to the innovations in letters and arts which threatened the older order: Childe Harold, Manfred, Werther, Obermann, all the magnificent or desperate revolutionists of romantic poetry were the companions of his sleepless nights. With them he rose to a proud disdain for the conventions, he shuddered as they did under the hated yoke of the aristocracy, which had neither genius nor virtue as its foundation; he desired no more subjection, no more resignation, but a holy hatred, implacable and avenging, toward all iniquities.¹

For d’Agoult, who within a year would begin a scandalous affair with the pianist that resulted in the birth of three children, Liszt was a man urged on by the literary heroes of the new Romantic movement. These figures, as d’Agoult proudly suggests, boldly defied artistic and social traditions in order to advance a new world in which the arts and their practitioners would assume central importance. While many of her contemporaries shared this outlook, in her estimation, Liszt went much further. Not only did he promote Romantic artistic principles in his music, writings and behaviour, but he actually embodied the very literary figures themselves. And while the heroes of French Romanticism were fundamental in shaping Liszt’s early artistic identity, he continued such assimilative practices throughout his entire life. As a result, literature and poetry routinely complemented his musical offerings, from the early Symphonie révolutionnaire and Album d’un voyageur to the esoteric song settings of his last years.